Saba - with Live Musical Accompaniment

Saba is a tram operator in Tbilisi. His life spirals downward when he loses his job in the wake of a violent, drunken night. In the course of yet another drinking bout, Saba nearly kills a loved one in a tram crash (the drunken tram driving around the city at night is one of the most daring sequences in the film). He is then given a second chance to sober up for the good of his family and his work. As becomes clear from this description, Saba is a temperance drama, a film genre with a long history and a set of well-known cliches. The film abides by them all: a wife (the majestic Veriko Andjaparidze) struggling to draw out her husband from a bar, a playing child wronged by the angry father, etc. At the same time, Saba surprises us with unexpected twists—not so much story twists, as twists in the cultural context, ideological messaging and, most importantly, visual style.